Estate tax needs to come back

Wouldn't it be nice if the Globe-News would do some investigation instead of reprinting the press releases of our congressmen or echoing the talking points of the Republican Party?

In an editorial about the estate tax (Jan. 17), the newspaper accepted the information given by U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry as fact with no checking. As a matter of fact, "the American Farm Bureau Federation acknowledged to the New York Times several years ago, when the estate tax was more expansive than it is today, that even then it could not cite a single example of a farm having to be sold to pay the estate tax," according to the Center on Budget and Priority Policies.

Fewer than one in 20 farmers leaves a taxable estate. Even for the small number of farm estates that do pay, the typical payment, after deducting expenses and amounts retained by spouses, is about $5,000.

Only one-half of 1 percent of total estate taxes are even attributable to farm assets.

The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 reinstated the federal estate tax with a top tax rate of 35 percent and exemptions of $5 million per person ($10 million per couple). That means taxes are paid only on value above the exemptions ($5 million or $10 million). Also in 2009, the unified tax credit allowed $3.5 million for an individual or $7 million for a couple to be given to their heirs free of the estate tax. In addition, any payments can be spread over 14 years. There is also an exemption built into the law that is specifically designed for family-owned farms.

It has been estimated that only eighty small businesses and farm estates owed any estate tax in 2009 - that's three out of every 100,000 people who died in 2009, and it has been estimated by the Congressional Budget Office that with a $2 million exemption, only 123 farms that year would owe any estate tax; and small businesses were similar.

Thornberry's statement that "Family businesses ought to stay in the family, but onerous tax laws - which often force survivors of business owners - to sell their business because the tax burden is just too great," and "family farms or hardware stores in town - shouldn't have to fight off the tax man just to keep their doors open" is disingenuous.

One of the world's wealthiest men, Warren Buffett, and the father of another of the world's wealthiest men (Microsoft founder Bill Gates), William H. Gates, Sr. favor the estate tax.